Reviewing Disney's new Broadway adaptation of Aladdin, New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood describes Jonathan Freeman's Jafar as an "epicene menace." Let's take a look at what epicene through a picture of Jafar. Continue reading...
Having associated the interjection boo with ghosts since childhood, it took me a while to get used to it as a term of endearment for one's (presumably living) significant other. However, it's been around long enough by now that some of you may well have grown up with it. But never mind boo: it's time to get ready for bae, the latest monosyllabic pet name starting with B. Continue reading...
Follow this week's news coverage from a vocabularian's perspective by learning 10 words from this week's New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post coverage. Continue reading...
Is it possible to take vocabulary expansion too far? In a piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Bernstein points out the situations where word-knowledge can work against you, making the point that "language junkies" might want to be careful lest they alienate people they're trying to impress, or just render themselves incomprehensible. Continue reading...
Quick Quiz: Vocabulary.com assigns you harder or easier words A) based on information you input about your grade in school or education level, or B) by assessing your performance and then personalizing your learning experience based on what it knows about you. Continue reading...
We all know what a varmint is, thanks to Yosemite Sam (and others). It's an annoying animal (or person), the fauna equivalent of a weed. It's something (or someone) who takes your nice, tidy set-up, your lovely garden or lawn or your livestock, and makes a mess of it. Before you had a good environment; now you have a nasty varmint. Continue reading...
The issues surrounding the Russian state and the area of Ukraine known as Crimea involve centuries of history and complex issues of sovereignty and self-determination. In an effort to untangle at least some of these issues, we've made a list of 60 vocabulary words drawn from Putin's speech of March 18, 2014. Continue reading...
Yesterday, March 23, 2014, marked the 175th anniversary of a word that may be the most widely used expression in the world: "OK." MacMurray College English professor Allan Metcalf says "OK" is America's greatest export and debunks the various origin theories surrounding it. Continue reading...
From the annual meeting of the American Copy Editors Society in Las Vegas comes some earth-shaking news: the folks who edit the Associated Press Stylebook have loosened the distinction between "over" and "more than." The stylebook editors announced that they are now fine with "over" being used with numbers. Many of those in attendance were aghast, while others hailed the change as long overdue. Continue reading...